• Introduction
• Discussion on Wall Street Journal Article
• Portfolio Allocation for Retirees
• Investing for the Long Term
• Interview with Sandy Smith
• Closing Remarks

Introduction

Madison: Hello everyone, and welcome to the 10th episode of Not Just Numbers, Honest Conversations with a Financial Advisor and Lawyer. I am Madison Demora, and I am here with Mike Garry. Mike is the financial advisor and CFP and the founder and CEO of Yardley Wealth Management. He is also an estate planning lawyer, and his law firm is Yardley Estate Planning, LLC. Hey, Mike.

Mike: Hey, Maddie. How are you?

Madison: I’m awesome, Mike. Thank you for asking. So, Mike, I’m guessing you took issue with some things in the article you shared. Where would you like to start?

Discussion on Wall Street Journal Article

Mike: Maddie it’s like after five years, you’re starting to know me. First the article is titled “Older Americans Invest like 30 Year Olds”, and it was in the Wall Street Journal in July. We’ll put a link to the article in the show notes. In the article, they noted that nearly half of Vanguard 401K investors over 55 held more than 70% of their portfolio in stocks. And at Fidelity, nearly four in ten investors aged 65 to 69 hold two thirds or more of their portfolios and stocks.

Madison: What’s wrong with that?

Mike: Well, they picked a couple of data points that don’t necessarily mean anything. First, most people over 50 have multiple accounts. Most of our clients consolidate accounts when they move them to us and still usually wind up with more than one account per person. They typically have three or four per person when they initially reach out to us or more. So a married couple having six, seven, even ten accounts would be something we see all the time. It’s not unusual at all. So if in one of those accounts, a client had a high percentage of stocks, that doesn’t mean that overall, they have a high percentage of stocks.

Portfolio Allocation for Retirees

Madison: So is there a reason that your clients have more than one account typically?

Mike: Sure. Most clients have an IRA of some sorts. Almost always from a previous job. They will have brokerage accounts often, and a lot of times they’ll have a Roth IRA. And so there’s three different accounts, there’s three different tax types that go with those accounts. And we will, for most people, try to consolidate to having one of each of those types if they have them. Right? So a lot of clients only have an IRA, which is a rollover from a 401K. Um, but some people who were able to save in a Roth will have that, and then other people will start to have brokerage accounts. Usually brokerage accounts, people start them, you know, when they’re closer to my age, when they stop paying for kids and things like that, or if they’re real high earners, they’ll start brokerage accounts earlier, but they’re less common than the other two account types. But when we initially meet people, they might have those different accounts, but then they also might have 401K from 1-5 previous jobs or 403B from previous jobs. They might have multiple bank accounts with bank CDs in them or just savings. It’s not uncommon at all to see so many multiple accounts. In fact, one of the things that we do, Karen, here in the office, when people start with us and they upload all their statements and so we see what their accounts are, she will create a map to show the consolidation of accounts from, say, five IRAs to one, two Roth IRAs to one, and then, like, multiple savings and investment brokerage accounts into one. And then that could be for, you know, both clients in a couple. Maybe they’ll just wind up with a joint brokerage or they’ll each have a brokerage. But, yeah, ordinarily people will come down to one to six accounts instead of having, like, ten or more. That’s a great question.

Madison: Yeah so it’s more organized.

Mike: Yes, it’s much more organized. You know, people aren’t doing anything wrong. You know, they just leave a job. They’re not sure whether to rollover the 401K and consolidate it, you know, they’re not sure what to do. And, I mean, that’s why we have this job. Right? To help people with it. But what happens is it happens over time and it’s slow, and so people don’t realize it. So by the time they reach out to us, it’s partially because they want to make sure they’re prepared for retirement, a lot of times, but then also because it’s become unmanageable. If you have stocks, bonds, cash, CDs, real estate funds in ten different accounts and you don’t have software specifically to help manage that, it can become a time consuming chore to try to figure that out. Or as we see a lot of times, people just give up and then just keep things how they are. And then, you know, that leads to sometimes not the best results. Right? Like, it is better to have a plan and try to figure out what you’re going to do rather than just let things go.

Madison: Yeah, absolutely.

Mike: I think ordinarily people will get to the point where, like, okay, I need to do something about this. I need to take control, and that that’s when they reach out. That’s a great question, Maddie.

Madison: So going back, you said people typically roll their 401K into rollover IRAs. When do people typically start to do that?

Mike: So, I mean, you could do it when you’re 22 and you leave your first job. But people typically start to do that once they either, once they have an idea of they know what they want to do and they’ll consolidate, or when preparing for retirement and starting to think about the various things that they have and trying to come up with a plan for those things to make sure that they really will have enough for retirement to meet their monthly annual needs.

Madison: All right. Makes a lot of sense. So going back to the article…

Mike: So one of the things, what I had said is, so if somebody has ten accounts and somebody has in one of those accounts, they have a lot of stock or a high percentage of stocks, that doesn’t necessarily mean that overall they have a high percentage of stocks. We often see people with hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash savings because they’re not sure what to do with it. They might have bonds, like government bonds somewhere else. They might have other types of bonds. They might look at that Vanguard fund like, hey, we’ve heard how good the S&P 500, the total stock market index is from Vanguard for the last 40 years. So maybe they think, well, that’s where they’re going to hold their stocks. So just because somebody did a research and pulled this data point out doesn’t necessarily mean that people are investing like that. They could be, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that.

Madison: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Mike: I mean, the other thing is, they might not have bonds now because after years of very low returns from bonds, and then last year they had negative returns, maybe they got spooked and recently switched to having more stocks. Maybe that just happened. Or maybe, like, as I said, they have stocks in cash, and those account holders have, like, piles of cash sitting somewhere else, but they just have stocks in that 401K. You really cant draw accurate conclusions by looking at one account.

Investing for the Long Term

Madison: Any other issues?

Mike: Of course. Okay, so the article stated that at Fidelity, nearly four in ten investors aged 65 to 69 hold about two thirds or more of their portfolio in stocks. What does that mean? And is it wrong? So does that mean that more than six in ten hold less than two thirds? And is that wrong? This is the same paper that runs articles every six months or so about whether the 60/40 portfolio is alive or dead or making a comeback. Well, two thirds is 66 and two thirds percent, which is not far off from a 60/40 portfolio. Does the article anywhere say what portfolio people should have?

Madison: I don’t believe it does.

Mike: I think you’re right. I didn’t see it either.

Madison: So what portfolio should retirees have? What percentage should they have allocated to stocks?

Mike: So, what’s my most common answer to you, Maddie? It depends. All right. So for many years, we used a 50/50 stock bond allocation for a lot of retired clients because that’s what Bill Bengen used when he did his famous research in the early nineties in which he came up with the 4% rule. However, more and more over the last ten years, we’ve really used that with older retirees or the risk averse. And I’ve used a 65/35 allocation for most current retirees and then those that are close to retirement. Of course, we have client or two with less than 50% in stocks and several with 80% or more. It really depends on the client situation.

Madison: Wait, I didn’t hear 60/40. Do we not use the 60/40 portfolio? Is that because you think the 60/40 portfolio is dead?

Mike: Maddie, you are correct. You didn’t hear me say 60/40, because that is not one of our main portfolios. We have several clients who use 60/40 because we think it makes sense for them and that’s what they are comfortable with. But our more common portfolio close to that is a 65/35 portfolio.

Madison: Okay, so it’s just a little different.

Mike: Yep, just a little. We made that tweak a long time ago for a few different reasons. First, like, people were living longer, and so a little bit more in stocks made sense to me. Bonds weren’t returning that much, so it got harder to put so much money in them. Finally, the bond funds we use are lower risk in the bond market as a whole. So it felt like we could increase the risk from the stock part by a little and get a little bit more return from the same basic risk as a traditional 60/40 allocation. The reality is that going from 60% to 65% stocks doesn’t make that big of a difference. We’re just trying to improve the margins at the margins.

Madison: Okay, so any other issues with this article?

Mike: Just a couple. They don’t speak with any financial advisors, and the experts they spoke to dont say at all what they think is an appropriate portfolio would be for a retiree. They do speak to several people who invest on their own, who hold mostly stocks, but they don’t really go into their circumstances so much, so its hard to tell if its appropriate. I guess the piece is mostly about how people feel about investing. Its not like a scientific article. So in that sense its okay. But the title reads, that they’re investing like 30 year olds, seem to suggest that they’re wrong.

Madison: Okay. So I think my next question would be, is there anything you do like about this article?

Mike: Yes. The fact that more and more people are beginning to accept the fact that owning more stocks for the long run is the right idea. Now I just wish they didn’t hold so many individual stocks because I don’t think people really appreciate the risk reward trade off involved. When Jeremy Siegel wrote that book, “Stocks for the Long Run”, which if you havent read it, you should read it and then reread it, it talks about the risk adjusted return from stocks has been better than bonds, cash in real estate, and its been that way for more than 200 years. One of the things that I think people took wrong for that is he was saying stocks as an asset class, if you bought all the stocks that trade on the market, whereas I think sometimes people think if you buy any stock and hold it for a long time, its going to work out okay. And thats just not actually true. Almost all of the positive returns from the stock market since the depression have come from like 100 stocks. It really is not a situation where most stocks do well. Most stocks do not do well. Most companies, it’s hard to get a company, start a business, invest in it, get it so that it’s big enough to be on the stock exchange, which is the top three to 5000 companies. They’re just not that many, and then sustain that for a long time. So a company like GE, that’s had serious problems recently, but has been around for more than 100 years, or J&J, just because that’s in the news, like those are really outliers, that just does not happen all that often. And so I wish that people would buy baskets of stocks or stocks as an asset class, not just buy a stock because you think it’s good and it will always work out. That’s just not a reality based investing plan. Thanks, Maddie.

Madison: Yes, thank you for highlighting those important considerations.

Mike: That is literally my job.

Madison: Is there anything else you wanted to add?

Mike: No, I don’t think so.

Interview with Sandy Smith

Madison: We are joined here today with Sandy Smith. Sandy is the CEO of Smith Publicity. Sandy, would you like to explain to our listeners what Smith publicity is and how it came about a little background?

Sandy: Absolutely. Thanks for having me here. Smith Publicity, it’s a great company to talk about because it’s a field that not many people know exist, but when they do, they get fairly excited. And animated. So what we do is help authors create awareness for their books. So whether it’s someone like the pope. Yes, we’ve worked with the pope, or even someone like Mike Garry, we help authors build their audience, create awareness about their work and their messages. Some people really want to sell books. Other people, their goals might be, yes, book sales are great, but they have a passion for a topic, or they are an expert in their field, and they want to continue to grow their network and grow their influence and thought leadership. And, of course, we work with novelists, and they want to tell their story. And really, book sales are the most important for them, but, yes, so we help authors get media attention for their book, and this could be in the form of a book review, but in the media, they’re more interested in not just book, but how the book can impact the lives of your viewers, listeners, readers. And that’s the fun of this. So whether it’s a bylined article, a podcast interview, feature story, expert commentary, there’s all different ways that we can entice the media to see value in an author. And that’s the value to the author is growing their brand, growing their network. So that’s what we do, is marketing for authors.

Mike: So, Sandy, you mentioned Mike Garry and the pope. They’re so similar. Do you have other types of clients, too?

Sandy: No, just Mike and the pope. That’s it. Um, just two. That’s all they need, the two most famous people. So we have, you name a genre, we have worked with it. The only genre we stay away from is poetry. And although we still have had some poetry books, but we work with children’s books, novels, memoirs. I would say the majority of our authors are nonfiction authors because they typically have a little bit more of a brand that they’re building and a long term strategy where the book is just one small part of their entire marketing program. So, leadership, personal finance. Oh, my gosh. From taxes to mold experts, we have a lot of dei books, women’s leadership. I’m just trying to think. Political books, history books. So you name the genre. We have worked with them.

Mike: How did you get started in it?

Sandy: Well, my now husband started the business in 1997, and he was a frustrated worker bee at, actually, Rider University over inJersey, and he was going home at lunchtime. This is before, really, obviously, technology and writing for a magazine called Radio, Television, Interview Order. And what this was was a physical magazine that producers would get, and there would be ads for people to interview. And so Dan Smith started writing little ads for that, represented experts. And so a couple of his clients really liked his writing. He’s a brilliant writer, so he started promoting them to get more media coverage. It’s really interesting because he didn’t come from the world of publishing. He came from kind of a writing background and very scrappy. So he had his first client and a second client. Then he cashed in his 401K and started the business. I came into the picture in 2005, and there were one full time person and an intern. And so I was a stay at home mom. My kids were just getting back into school. I was part of the PTO and I worked at our church CCD program. Just kind of still using some of my professional skills, but I was excited to get back into the world. And Madison, this isn’t a day, and I’m sure Mike remembers where, there was not much flexibility. I came from a corporate world before I had children, where I was in the office from eight to six. That was a normal day with an hour commute on each side. So it felt like those days it was all or nothing. There weren’t that many part time jobs, especially ones that were at a higher level of thinking. Yeah, there were probably some admin jobs, and admin jobs are fantastic, but back in those days, you were either in or you were out or not at the same level of career that you left. So my kids went back to school. I saw the ad in the Bucks County Courier Times. And it said, you know, book marketing. No idea what that was, but I love books and I have a background in marketing. So I applied for the job and I started working there part time. And you had to work from home because we were actually virtual. We had an office actually, Yardley, Mike right near you behind Yardley Ice House. And that appealed to me because my kids were very young and their dad was traveling all the time with his work. Closest relatives 300 miles away. So I didn’t have a ton of family support. So it was a great way for me to get back into the workforce in a very different, related, but different industry. And it was fantastic because I got to meet these authors. But what was more interesting even than the authors was I could see Dan’s process. It was a brilliant writer. He could make you want to read any book that came across the desk. He had natural instincts for news tie ins. But what I saw was opportunity to scale the business, to replicate a process. So that we could be more efficient and scale. So then we, so I could whisper in his ear and say, hey, try this, try this with your trade show. Because I did a ton of trade shows before and really came at it a bit more strategically and took over kind of business development and hiring more publicists and said, okay, if we do this, we can pay them this. And then we went from two publicists to five to ten to 15, and now we’re at 30 people on our team. So that was really exciting. And Dan and I now married, which is a whole other podcast, but what was really exciting was to see the potential. And at first, it wasn’t my money. It was just like whispering to see, hey, try this, do this. But he worked, he worked seven days a week, you know, 15 hours days, no entrepreneurial to start. And that’s, I have so much respect for that. And I remember when I started his, his then wife is now late wife. I took over for a week so he could go on vacation. And she said, she sent me flowers. She said it was the first time they had a vacation with him. Fully present in years. As Mike, as you know, as an entrepreneur, you’re doing everything, you know, from a to z. So I was so happy to be able to do that for their family and just continue to test my skills and be creative. And that was really the fun. So that’s how it all kind of evolved. And one of the biggest ways we evolved is tapping into people who had a similar background as I did, people who, women who were moms, who were professionals, who took a step back from their career to spend time with their children and were ready and eager to get back, but needed some flexibility, needed that work from home or hybrid. And so it was a great model because people could work part time, they could work full time. They scaled back in the summer when their families needed them and as a professional and felt really good to be able to offer that type of work environment to other moms and people like myself who were really excited to get back to the workforce. But had, it would have been hard to go back to that kind of house every day at six and get back every day at 07:00 p.m. That we grew up.

Mike: So Dan was so smart to hire you like that, right? And it’s way before it was so common and, you know, so, Maddie, from my perspective, that gives me like nightmares of time in the nineties and late eighties, I guess, where you just like even if you were done everything that seemed to need to be done, and it was 5:30, you couldn’t leave the office without getting, like, side eyed glances from other coworkers and your boss. And I can’t tell you how much more rewarding it was leaving there, even though I worked so much more that was on my schedule. And so if we wanted to go to see the girls games, we could do that. And then I just go back and work the laptop and all the technology wasn’t there then, but enough was that you could do that. And it’s such a different thing. You know, if. If there was an upside of COVID it was the fact that, you know, you can, if you have a professional who’s trying to do a good job, they don’t need to be, like, you know, at their desk at a certain time, like, looking like they’re working. Like, let them live their lives and be productive employees. And, you know, If you hire the right people, you know, good things happen. You know, we’re fortunate, you know, that we have people that have been here for a while now. Karen, Sandra, you know, they’ve each been here for eight and four years, and, you know, if they need to get something done, it’s okay, because they’re not ever going to, like, let their work slip, you know.

Sandy: Yeah, give them the parameters and the goals, and you say, go, and they can do it. I used to get up at five in the morning and I would work Mike from, you know, five to, you know, 730. I would switch and do get the kids off the bus and then work until ten, especially on the summer. I could work longer, but I would get more done between, you know, 05:00 a.m. And ten than most people did in the normal eight to five job. Of course, I’d have touch points during the day and clients and things, but I was able to. It wasn’t always easy, but I had that flexibility. I’d pick up my daughter when she was in middle school every day at three, every single day at three, because she didn’t have a bus, and now they do. But it was a two mile walk, and it was just a lot for her, right. And for me. So I wanted to pick her up and I wanted to be there for her. Could she have walked? Of course. But I remember one time being on a call, and Dan was on the call, too, with a client. And I said to him, I have to run to pick up Katie. And he was like, sure. They hold the call, like, keep it going. And I ran. It was two minutes away, came back, picked up the ball call and kept going. Couldn’t do that on Zoom, right, Mike? You’re right. The side eye of the pressure to be the first one and the last one out of your job, even if you didn’t need to be there. That equated the good worker. What’s interesting is one of the books I have is Tricia Timm. We’re working with. We just finished a year with Tricia, and she’s owning your identity at work. And she’s Hispanic, which is part of her book. And how she had to hide that. She’s very, very prestigious lawyer. But she’s around our age, Mike, reading through what she had to do just brought me back. Like you said, she told her boss expecting child. Her boss didn’t talk to her. And then she had to hide that she was a mother and she was the breadwinner of the family. So her husband took care of the baby, and he would have to bring the baby to the parking garage so she could nurse at, like, lunchtime and follow her to meetings and so she could dash out to. It’s just, you know, I’m hoping that women today, for the most part, have much, parents altogether, have much better flexibility so you can bring your authentic self to work. And I think what Dan, what happened to really help him was his late wife was a schoolteacher, and so her job was very much, of course, in the classroom and flexible. So they had two children, and he was the one who would go to the poetry reading at school. He was the one school nurse would call that he had to drop. The child was sick. It was him that had the flexibility to be able to do that. So I think that allowed me to share more of my day to day. You had to be professional about it. You don’t want to say, like, oh, I’m doing mommy and me yoga again at ten every day when talking to clients. So there’s some discretion there. But you can’t do that. And give professionals, you know, and doesn’t matter if they have children or not, but just give people, as you said, Mike, that flexibility to deal with life and work in a way that you trust them to do so.

Mike: Right. Yeah. When you have people who are good at their jobs. Right. And, like, it’s so important for your company, you know, and I, you know, Karen and Sandra interact with clients all the time. And I have no doubt ever that they’re going to do the right thing. Right. Like, and so, yes, it’s like thinking about the way it was 20 or 30 years ago, it seems so silly or stupid in hindsight, right. That you had to be, like, at that desk. So how do you, and then, like, how would you go to the bank? How would you have a doctor’s appointment?

Sandy: Like, how would you, except that delivery, your heat’s broken or cables coming between nine and twelve, just jk, they’re really coming at 430. I mean, and then you’re wasting one of your, you know, ten vacation days on waiting for the cable person to come.

Mike: Right, right.

Sandy: And the other thing that we’re seeing a lot is, Mike, again, at our age, we get to see different stages is caring for elderly, caring for that generation as well. So it’s not just children, it’s it’s your, you know, aging parents or even, you know, taking your pet to the vet, not having to take a sick day because your dog is, not doing okay. You know, like, okay, I’m taking an hour or two here. Well, work still going to get done. And something that I learned many, many years ago at doing this is not to make rules because of one person. Right. So of course, we’ve had many employees and if one person, kind of a lack of better word, like, took advantage of that policy, you don’t change the rules for everybody. Right. And with it, with that one person, if someone’s like, oh, they’re, they’re missing a bit too much. There’s too much going on in their life that they’re not showing up and getting their, their job done. You don’t say, okay, everyone’s going to come back to the office nine to five, that’s it.

Mike: Yeah. Right. It sounds like, sounds like what an elementary school teacher who’s lost control of the class would do instead of talking to that individual and saying, like, listen, that, that’s not working. We need to fix whatever needs to be fixed instead of like, holding the whole company hostage over that.

Sandy: Right. How many have we got in trouble because the other kids, this probably a tactic though, who couldn’t sit still. So we all lost, you know, recess privilege or something. But, yeah, that was, that was something that, and I talked to Dan and our team here about that. You know, we try to trust everybody until they maybe need some coaching or some guidance on a strategy because not everybody can work remotely or have that flexibility. They need a little more guidance. And that’s okay as long as, um, we have a system in place that supports what breaks them shine.

Mike: Right. Right. If it’s a known issue or, or quantity, let’s say. And then you have, have a way of making it still work and be successful. That that’s the important thing. Right. And sometimes that’s hard to figure out. Um, you know, and, you know, and sometimes it takes a little patience or understanding.

Sandy: Yeah and you don’t want to punish everybody because. Not punish, but change the rules. For someone who may be struggling with a more independent workflow.

Madison: Sandy, how is business going?

Sandy: Business is going well. Summer was a little bit slower than normal. And we just talked, we have a fractional CFO at our meeting yesterday, and he’s saying across all industries, it’s a little bit slower, but they have 100 clients of just looking at different economic trends. But the clients that we have are staying with us longer. And so our falls are busy season, so we typically are running around with our heads cut off in the fall. So in the summer, what we’ve been doing as we are just slightly below capacity, we’re taking that time to kind of best foundational material where our team is updating training manuals or giving extra love to the clients that we have. So we have great processes when we have that downtime. Because in the fall, there’s not going to be any extra time for updating training procedures or documentation or consultation or writing extra articles because be hitting the ground running. With COVID and the year after, what we did is get more creative, different packages for authors. And so we did well through COVID. And even 2021, 2022, we really grew. And what was exciting in 2021, while all the new books that were published because people had time to write during COVID So that was kind of exciting. But business is going well. And I think in part we have developed a different path in our company, and very intentionally so in the past few years, where when we needed, when we needed new people, we needed new talent. We’re growing. We would often hire from the outside, of course, we would look at different book publicists, marketing experts, bring them in kind of them. And what we’re doing now, and it’s working so well, is we are, we have a really nice intern to publicity, coordinated to associate publicist to publicist role. And what that does is it’s allowing us to really grow and find talent at a new stage in their career and give support to the people who are here for 10, 15, 20 years. And so it’s been a really nice, really nice flow to see the energy of friendships and the bonds of the new talent that’s coming in. I’m learning so much from them and all different aspects of life. So we’ve got a vibrant team of new professionals, and that has really helped our business because we’re able to give support to the people who have been at it for a bit, but also we’re pulling up and developing talent, and it’s personally rewarding as well for me, but for them to see them grow and help them with a path skills.

Madison: So my next question was about how did the pandemic affect your business? But you kind of answered that. You said a lot of authors had time to write, and that’s awesome.

Sandy: Yeah. And the one good thing about the pandemic. I know, I know. I hate to say that because it was tragic for so many people, is from a business perspective, tv really changed, and we were able to do Zoom interviews. So that allowed, in my opinion, the news world to draw from talent that wasn’t necessarily in the major cities. Right. So New York obviously is a big place for the morning tv shows and news tv shows from take a step back to publicity. We would get authors, say, on the Today show or Good Morning America, it doesn’t happen every day, but it happens regularly. And sometimes they would fly there from wherever they would get to the studio, and then a breaking news story would happen and they would have to be postponed, especially more than the news stories say that the Today show type of format. And then the producers, they wouldn’t want to take a chance of kind of just, they don’t want to disappoint people. And sometimes they pay, sometimes they don’t for the guests to come out. Most times they don’t. But so they would kind of draw from their local talent. Now, with, with the pandemic, with Zoom, they were able to interview people, and it didn’t take that person, you know, two days out of their schedule to get to New York and hotel and flights, they could just show up. And so that was fantastic. Sadly, it’s getting a little bit back to in person with, with television, but that was great for, for quite a while. We were able to have clients in Topeka, Kansas, be on national news very, very easily or international clients. That still is happening. The other positive impact from the different work styles and the media is we used to send out hundreds of books a day for review. Send me a copy of the book. Let me see it. And people working from home didn’t want to give out their personal dresses, of course. So sending a PDF of the book safely became the norm, and that saved an enormous amount of money for the authors of postage and immediacy. So that’s been, that shifted our business a little bit for the positive.

Mike: It’s interesting to me the things that had to be a certain way. And then when there’s a big change, like the pandemic, all of a sudden, like, oh, it doesn’t actually have to be that way. I can get a PDF of that book instead of taking, you know, that, the time and the postage and the physical copy of the book.

Madison: Sandy, what do you like best about what you’re doing?

Sandy: What I like best, talking to people like Mike. I get to talk to some amazing professionals, and it is not so much that they’re accomplished, and many are. It’s hearing about their lives and their stories and why they chose to write a book at this stage in their career, just the journeys that people have had in their life. So I feel like I’m at one on one cocktail party and really diving into who they are. And the favorite part is when I talk to someone who we’re trying to see if we’re a good fit for each other, and I do at least an hour research before I get on the call, and I’ll start asking them about questions in their backround, and they’re just like, I can’t believe you did this. Took this time. Like, I really want to get to know you. And sometimes we don’t even talk about their book. We just talk personal. And then it goes into their goals. And that’s the fun for me, is kind of getting them to smile. And we find that kind of nugget of a conversation point that builds that human connection, and that’s a lot of fun. And then I see their jaw dropping credentials, what they’ve done, and world stage or a very passionate project that they’re truly changing lives with their work from people who have, have changed the lives in Haiti through kind of a micro financing of teaching women how to start a business with $25 and the lives that they’ve impacted. Someone like that, to a true Harvard scholar who is changing the way that businesses are accounting for human capital. And when this person talks, the entire world changes, and his slice of the world. So another one is talking to a woman who helps children who age out of the foster system. What a beautiful human being she is. And we got her so much great media that Russell Brand, I don’t think he’s big now, as he was, but took on her charity and got these household names to recgonzie. And she was just a regular person who came out of the foster system herself, had adopted, I think, at least ten children, and really put her money where her mouth was in terms of making a difference. So, Madison, that makes me, that gets me out of bed in the morning to be able to, I never know where the day is going to go. Yesterday, working with one of the creators of Blue’s Clues. And to talk to this woman who did Danielle Tiger with Blue Clues, I met with her in New York in April, how cool is that?

Mike: Yeah, that’s very cool.

Sandy: And to see, like, how did you start? And what are you doing now? And tell me about your book and she was, like, super normal and smart and engaging, someone you just want to spend time with. So that’s a great part of what makes me get up in the morning. And, of course, the other part is the people here at Smith. My daughter stopped by recently, and she said, I don’t know how you get any work done here everyone is so great. And I said, I know, because we just have all these side conversations. But my favorite thing is when I hear all the people outside my office laughing. I love to hear the laughing. Maybe not right now as we’re recording, but I love to hear the bonding of the work, friendships that have evolved. Madison its something that makes me love this job. To bring these people together who I hope will be in each other’s lives for the rest of their life.

Madison: I think that’s what’s so interesting, is like, you never know where your day’s going to go. You never know who you’re going to meet. You never know what new information you’re going to learn. I just, I think that’s amazing.

Sandy: Yes, exactly. No two days are alike. I like that.

Madison: With all the success you’ve achieved, what’s the biggest challenge you’re facing or have faced?

Sandy: The biggest challenge is, I alluded to it earlier, is, okay, we’ve grown. We’ve got great people. What’s next? Where do you invest? Where should we invest our time? How do you do this? I’ve never done this before. If we want to take on a marketing website company, because most of our authors need that kind of help where they’re doing social media website development, we refer it out. Should we have our own company? I don’t know. If we do that, do we acquire? How do you do that? Or do you hire some people who’ve done this and build the work, build the clients? So, you know, those kind of questions, it’s exciting, but that’s, you know, kind of what’s next. The other thing is, again, we’re about 30 people. We don’t need an HR company but, boy, do we need HR skills. So we have, you know, we just found last year a really good company that does offer us help. We have questions and make sure that we’re legally doing everything right. That’s a full time job is the legal side of employees and keeping track of all the things we’re supposed to keep track of. That was exciting. The same thing for the CFO. We don’t need a full time CFO, but, boy, we need that guidence. So we found that. One thing, but still on our list is IT help? I’m sure that we can be doing better, safer, more efficiently, but we don’t need a full time IT. So those kinds of things. And I know from our CFO that it’s a very common challenge as we need to invest in these systems before we can really justify investing in them. But that’s going to give us the foundation to grow. But those things, Madison, the challenges. What do we want? What do we want to be at five years from now and ten years from now?

Mike: And there’s always other challenges and those things that you talk about, like what lines of business or then what do you need to have in that company or outsource, and then, you know, taking care of the vendors that you outsource to or that do different things.

Madison: All right, so if you could be remembered for one thing, what would it be?

Sandy: If could be remembered for one thing, it would be hopefully as a mom who really enjoyed her kids and that they know how much they mean to me, and I hope that I gave them a good life. That’s really what I want to be known for. There’s a quote, Mike, I don’t know if I can remember who said it, it might have been, I think it’s a financial guy who said, you know, you’re successful in life when, like, your adult kids like you type of thing. But last night, I hit a bucket list for my son, and I was so excited to be part of it and that he chose me to go with him. But, Mike, we went to see Messi play.

Mike: Oh, that’s so cool. Yeah.

Sandy: And my son’s a big soccer fan, football fan, followed Messi at the whole World cup this year. And, you know, he’s had all the jerseys from all the different teams through the years of Messi. What I love about Messi is not only is a phenomenal athlete, but he sounds like, from what we can tell from the outside, a really good person, good dad, a good husband, a good to his teammates. Like just one of those, like a good guy. And so I don’t know if, you know, he came to Miami and it’s really kind of interesting. And, you know, financially for him, he gave up, I think, almost a million dollar contract in Qatar or something somewhere in the Middle east. And so he came here and he’s building up this franchise where someone said last night the Miami franchise went from a $25 million value to $625 million value. And so he’s playing in Philly and we got tickets and Eric chose me to go with him. Instead of like a friend or someone who actually watches soccer routinely. And that was Madison, like, that’s, to me, it’s great. Now, will they always like me? I don’t know. Maybe not. I’m sure I’ll be very annoying or, you know, life takes turns and, you know, you come together, come apart kind of thing. For sure. But I hope that they look back at their childhood with fond memories. But I do have a little savings account for their therapy, which I’m sure they will need from parenting decisions. But, yeah, it’s having a fantastic company that does well. And then I enjoy and have beautiful team of people here. Many of them have started out with us right out of college, and now they’re our president and vice president just to see that longevity. Very proud of that. But it’s really. I hope I was a good parent and also to my dad, who’s still with me and up in Massachusetts. Every day I try to talk with him, email him, and it’s so hard just since I want him to move here, but he’s not quite ready to give up his independence is that I hope that he knows how important he is to me. Oh, gosh, the guilt. Is knowing that I’m helping him as he ages because he was such a great parent. I want to be a good parent to him, which also I hope my kids see how important it is to support the people in your life, no matter what’s going on with that, because he’s older now and he’s not the same, but he still has so much to give, so valuable and beloved by everybody. So I hope my kids see the honor of that as well.

Mike: Oh, that’s good. I’m sure they will see that.

Closing Remarks

Madison: Sandy, we know your time is incredibly valuable and we greatly appreciate you spending time with us. For those watching and listening and want to learn more about Smith publicity, where is the best place for them to find you?

Sandy: Sure. Our website is www.smithpublicity.com. I feel like I’m on NPR saying that. And also if anyone wants to connect with me, LinkedIn is probably the best place and it’s Sandra Poirier Smith because it’s a lot of Sandy Smiths. You can see that on LinkedIn Smith Publicity. You’ll be able to find me. I try to post there regularly. Some ideas on the world of book publicity. We also have, at Smith, you’ll see our newsletter. We have a podcast as well, blogs. So there’s a lot of educational information up there. So if you’re interested in the crazy world of book publicity, book marketing, come on over. You’ll get more than you bargained for. But yeah, a lot of information there.

Madison: Excellent. Thank you so much, Sandy, this was great.

Sandy: Thank you.

Mike: You really have done a great job with your career. You’re a good mom. Like, yeah, love having you. It’s awesome.

Sandy: Oh, well, thank you for having me. I hope it’s been a nice session for you both, and it’s so humbling to have people ask about your life. So thank you for having me.

Madison: Absolutely. For more information on Yardley Wealth Management or Yardley Estate Planning, you can visit our website at yardleywealth.net, and yardleyestate.net. You can also follow us on socials at Yardley Wealth Management. This podcast has been produced by Madison Demora and Mike Garry with the technical and artistic help from Poe Productions.